Daywalker chronicles com.., p.53
Daywalker Chronicles Complete Series Boxed Set, page 53
“You have friends. I imagine they’ll come for you. Not to mention, your body is meant to be on Earth. A corporeal being in a place of nothingness isn’t exactly natural. How can something be inside nothing?”
“I’m guessing it’s sort of like when I go to Hades or Olympus in the flesh. Except there isn’t a River Styx I can sail back to the underworld through. When a gorgon sends me here, an intense emotion, something grounded in the core of my being, can snap me back into my body. Will that still work if my body is here, though?”
Sloth shook his head. “I’m not sure. You think just because I’m a demon I have all the answers?”
I huffed. “Of course not. I sort of assumed that if you really were on my side in all of this you might have more of a plan before you brought me here with you.”
Sloth was picking his nose as he listened to me speak. “I thought about coming up with a plan but, well, I sort of put it off. I’m more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants sort of demon. The least effort necessary at all times.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sometimes a little planning, a little effort in advance, can spare you a lot of unnecessary work later.”
Sloth flicked a booger off his forefinger into the darkness of the void. “Good advice. I’d say I’d remember that the next time something like this comes up but, well, in my world not a lot happens. It might be another thousand years before I have to do anything. At least that’s what I’m hoping for.”
“Look, buddy. You brought me here, so you’re going to have to pull your weight to help me beat Sin and get home again. After that, well, if you want to spend eternity here in nothing, doing nothing, that’s your prerogative.”
“I suggested a golem already!”
I pinched my chin. “The idea makes sense in theory. There’s just one problem. I don’t have an Archeus crystal with me. This isn’t just a vast expanse of nothingness. We call it the void, but I think that’s a misnomer. I’ve been here several times before. So has Zoey. The Scholomance is here and somehow it intersects with the underground school of sorcery in Romania. There are entire realms that gods who haven’t been worshipped or revered in centuries inhabit. What if we could find another god who might have beef with the Akkadians?”
Sloth rubbed his brow. “The Akkadian Empire is often described as the first major empire. I won’t say there weren’t powerful peoples before the Akkadians, but the notion isn’t entirely wrong, either.”
I bit my lip. “I was always under the impression that the Akkadians were basically Babylonians.”
“Not exactly. Akkad predated Babylon. When the Akkadian Empire fell, its people eventually became the Babylonian and Assyrian empires.”
“How did Akkad fall?” I asked.
Sloth sighed. “You’re really taking me back. A combination of factors, including drought. The invasion of the Gutians was the nail in the coffin. If there’s any god who might have an advantage over Sin and the other Akkadian deities, it’s Ninurta.”
“Revered by the Gutians, I’m guessing?”
Sloth nodded. “I hesitate to mention him. He was no friend of mine nor of my brothers but, then again, perhaps that’s exactly what we need if Sin intends to harness our power.”
I smirked. “I’m guessing demons and gods have a history of butting heads.”
“Metaphorically speaking, of course, you’re right. In ancient Mesopotamia, people like the Gutians honored Ninurta as a god of farming, healing, and hunting. He was a healer, curing human sickness and releasing the people of the region from the power of demons.”
“Demons like you?” I asked.
Sloth nodded. “Precisely. My brothers, especially. He has power over us, a sort that I can’t fully describe. I haven’t encountered Ninurta in thousands of years and I can’t say I’m exactly eager to do so now.”
“So is there some realm here where he might be found? As I understand it, the gods who reside in the void have little kingdoms or domains that resemble in part the paradise they offered their followers in life.”
Sloth grunted. “I cannot say for sure. I’m not all that familiar with this place—if you can call it a place at all. Over time, Ninurta became the chief god of war in the region. The Gutians credited him with their victory over Akkad. After the fall of the Akkadian Empire, Ninurta was honored by the Assyrians as a warrior god. They built him a temple and everything. I’ve never had one of those.”
“You aren’t a god, so maybe that’s why. Not to mention, isn’t every beanbag chair and La-Z-Boy recliner a temple to Sloth?”
Sloth thought about it and laughed. “I suppose you’re right. They pay homage to me by resting their butts upon my holy but comfortable altars. They honor me with their fragrant offerings. May their farts rise before me as incense!”
I tilted my head. “Lovely image, befitting of your vice.”
“Isn’t it though! I never thought of it like that before. I feel special.”
“So we need to find Ninurta. He might have a way of stopping Sin. That means we need to find some realm of Assyrian deities?”
Sloth shook his head. “Assyria was conquered by Babylon. The Babylonians worshipped Ninurta beginning in the mid-third millennium BC. To the Babylonians, Ninurta was a god of victory. Ninurta’s descendants were among the better-known gods of Babylon like Marduk, Nabo, Tiamat, and Ishtar.”
I blinked at him. “I’m going to need notes to keep all these names straight.”
“It doesn’t matter. Ninurta is the only one of these with experience dealing with the Akkadians, like Sin. If we want to know the best way to stop Sin from harnessing the power of demons, Ninurta is the one we must seek.”
“But we’ll find him among Assyrian and Babylonian gods?”
Sloth shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s my best guess. So far as I know, these gods were mostly forgotten after Babylon fell roughly five hundred years before the Common Era. They’ve likely been languishing here, polishing their own knobs, ever since.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Finding something in the so-called void wasn’t like looking for any place on Earth. That’s because there wasn’t technically any space in the void—hence the name. But there was also more space than you could imagine.
It wasn’t heaven and it wasn’t hell. There were heavens and hells of a sort within it.
The underworld, Hades, and Olympus were all connected to the Greek pantheon. I’d met a fair share of those gods, myself. According to Zoey, there were a number of theories about “heaven.” One of them was that if the boatman dropped a soul off in Olympus it traveled across the shore and found itself in whatever heaven the deceased believed in. Since Zoey and I knew Greek gods ourselves, every time we disembarked at Olympus, that’s where we went. If an intense emotion or connection to life can bring someone back to their body if they’ve been sent to the void by a gorgon, faith could lead someone through the void after being released by the boatman into their own expected version of paradise.
I wasn’t in the void as a spirit. I’d come to the Scholomance before because that’s where I intended to go. I may have been a vampire, and technically dead, but I was still an Earth-bound embodied being. My soul was still bound to what I was, not the paradise I may or may not believe in. I still wasn’t sure about all of that. I’d never met a god I was especially eager to shack up with in the ever-after, much less worship.
I know it sounds corny as hell—or even as corny as heaven, which might have been a more appropriate expression—but the way to move into different realms within the void was to take a step of faith.
Seek and ye shall find.
If Ninurta was in some celestial Babylon, hanging out with other ancient gods I wasn’t eager to meet, all I had to do was walk through the dark expanse with the intention of going to Babylon. Somehow I’d find it.
Sloth and I stayed close together. If we weren’t looking for the same thing, we could take one wrong step and find ourselves in totally different domains.
“You lead the way,” Sloth said. “It is best if I simply follow you. I have little experience navigating the void.”
I nodded. “I imagine most demons know little of this place.”
“Yes and no. There are some of my brothers who various gods deem useful.”
“What use do gods here have for anyone or anything?”
“There’s a human saying about how absolute power corrupts, absolutely. Turns out, the same applies to gods. On occasion, Hades used to rent us out like mercenaries for the gods to use as agents in their various power struggles within their respective pantheons.”
I shook my head and sighed. “I’d say that’s surprising, but I’ve seen the Olympians up close and personal. They nearly destroyed the entire world in their struggles for control.”
Sloth laughed. “What you might not realize is that many of those disputes are the work of my brothers. Envy and Pride, Wrath on occasion, have served to sow seeds of conflict within any number of pantheons.”
I raised one eyebrow. “A demon can inflict a god with his vice?”
Sloth steepled his fingers and tapped his fingertips together. “We demons work in mysterious ways.”
I snorted. “Seriously. How does it work?”
“As you’ve seen, we come with certain abilities, as undesirable as our skills might be to most. We cannot possess a god by force. They can harness our kind and use our abilities themselves by welcoming our possession.”
“Gods will let a demon inside of them?”
“In a way. They may also expel us when we cease to be of use. You can see now why Hades, and Athena after him, found our kind quite useful in their quests to retain control over hell.”
“And the demons have no control over the gods at all?”
“I’ve never done it myself. My particular vice isn’t of much use to anyone. Mostly because they lack vision. Why use a vice that turns people to act and destroy when they could just as easily use me to make people do nothing at all.”
“Is that a bit of envy in you I sense?”
Sloth shook his head. “Not at all. Curiosity, at most. Curiosity is neither a virtue nor a vice. It may kill the cat, but curiosity also inspires innovation.”
“Insightful for a guy who doesn’t do much.”
“First, I’m not a guy, I’m a demon. Technically we’re genderless. Second, most wisdom comes through mindfulness, through clearing the mind. In my quest to find and do nothing, you’d be surprised. The path to finding something more often comes through seeking less.”
I pinched my chin. “That’s actually insightful.”
“Think about it, Sienna. How many sages are wealthy and live in luxury? The wisest of men in history have been poor, many of them hermits.”
I took a deep breath. “We’re going into Babylon. What can you tell me of the place?”
“I only know what it was in history. I’ve never been to Babylon, here. I suspect it will be a conflation of what Babylon was through the centuries. Like any kingdom or empire, it was at times governed justly and at other times ruled by tyrants.”
“How much of Babylon did you really see? Weren’t you and your brothers bound in Hades for most of history?”
Sloth shrugged. “The vices are as old as time. For millennia, my brothers and I were permitted free rein on the Earth to sow the seeds of our corruption in mankind. Only later, after humanity reached a point of corruption that pleased the gods, were we limited and restrained. We were no longer needed. Humans managed to spread their vices on their own, even without our influence.”
“The Greek gods restrained you and sent you to Hades?”
“The Greeks were the dominant pantheon at the time. Binding my brothers and me was probably the only thing that all the gods agreed on. Since the Greeks were the most powerful, we were then entrusted to Hades and did his bidding in the centuries that followed.”
“When did all this happen, exactly?”
“Just under two hundred years after the fall of Babylon, during the conquests of Alexander the Great whose devotion to the Greek pantheon contributed to their ascension over the other gods.”
“So you witnessed pretty much the entire history of Babylon?”
“Intermittently. It wasn’t like I hung out there all the time. The world is a big place, despite what the animatronic and multi-ethnic robots at the Disney parks say in song.”
I chuckled. “That ride was one of the many versions of hell I endured when I went to Hades after Athena took over.”
Sloth nodded. “I’m well aware. I was there at the time. Much to my dismay, I was forced to construct that particular hell. You’d be surprised how many damned souls were consigned to that never-ending float. It’s one of the more popular attractions in hell.”
“So you’ve seen enough of Babylon that once we get inside, you’ll know your way around?”
“Do I look like a tourist demon to you?”
“Right. You’re Sloth. You don’t do shit.”
Sloth grinned. “I know Babylon like the back of my hand. I suspect we’ll find Ninurta at his temple. Get us into Babylon, and I’ll lead you to Ninurta.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I didn’t have to say anything out loud. All I did was think Babylon, and two steps later a marvelous city with high stone walls and a towering ziggurat in the middle was in front of us. Luscious vines adorned some of the walls.
“The Hanging Gardens?” I asked. “An ancient wonder of the world, right?”
Sloth laughed. “It is a wonder, but the Hanging Gardens are far more glorious than the foliage dangling from the walls.”
We approached a stone archway on one of the walls. A man in a robe adorned in gold tassels and brocade was there. He had a narrow crown on his head.
“Sloth! You lazy bastard!”
The man hugged the demon. Sloth didn’t hug back. He just stood there while the man squeezed him.
“Hello, Nebuchadnezzar.”
“Holy shit. You’re Nebuchadnezzar? The Nebuchadnezzar?”
“Technically, I’m Nebuchadnezzar the Second, but I suspect I’m the one you’ve heard about. I’m the famous one.”
“You’re in the Bible!”
Nebuchadnezzar tilted his head. “The Bible?”
“A holy book,” Sloth explained. “Started with the Hebrews. It grew from there. It’s a long story.”
Nebuchadnezzar nodded. “Well, be that as it may, this is quite a surprise. Young lady, are you what I think you are?”
“That depends. What do you think I am? If it’s a goddess, then yes! Of course I am.”
Nebuchadnezzar slugged Sloth on the shoulder. “How’d you get wrapped up with a vampire?”
Sloth shrugged. “It just happened. You know me. It’s not like I put in a lot of effort.”
“My name is Sienna, your Highness.”
“Your buddy, Sloth, and I used to make quite the team back in my day. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, though. Surely he’s told you.”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t tell me much unless I ask. It’s not like we’re besties or anything.”
“We aren’t?” Sloth asked. “I’m hurt.”
I rolled my eyes. “Please. What did he mean that you two used to be a team?”
“Do you want to tell the story or should I?” Nebuchadnezzar asked.
“I can’t be bothered. Telling stories is exhausting.”
Nebuchadnezzar bit his fist with wide eyes. Whatever memories he shared with Sloth made him borderline giddy. “Sloth here helped me conquer many, many, kingdoms. Those were the days!”
Sloth closed his eyes, recalling the ancient past. “They were certainly interesting times.”
“I don’t get it. How was Sloth involved in conquering empires? Granted, we don’t know each other that well, but conquering people sounds like something that takes a lot of effort.”
A wide smile split the old Babylonian king’s face and he swiped his hand through the air dismissively. “I did all the actual conquering. Sloth here prepared my opposition for battle.”
“I don’t understand. If he was on your side, why would he prepare the enemy for anything at all?”
“When your enemy is completely sedentary, they’re much easier to defeat.”
I laughed and shook my head. I suppose turning an enemy docile was a more peaceable way to conquer them than slaughtering their warriors. Even that must’ve involved more work than Sloth typically endured.
“It is as Nebuchadnezzar describes,” Sloth confirmed. “I don’t even recall how many peoples we bested that way.”
I turned to Sloth and tilted my head. “You helped him? That’s not really your style. It must’ve taken some effort.”
Nebuchadnezzar laughed. “He was well rewarded with luxury and years of relaxation.”
Sloth nodded. “He’s right. It was worth it. Sometimes I have to put in a little effort over a short time so I can enjoy an extended period of lethargy later. All I had to do was walk around a few ancient cities and touch a few folks. Then, it was the absolute bliss of not doing what I don’t do best for months at a time.”
Shooting the shit with a dead king wasn’t exactly a priority, but then again, in the void, it wasn’t like we were losing a lot of time back on Earth. An hour in the void could be a week, or even a few months, back on Earth. In my experience, it wasn’t consistent. Usually, though, time passed more slowly on Earth relative to my experiences in the void. In what once took roughly a day on Earth, it felt like almost a year here, back when I was in the Scholomance playing board games with Abraham Van Helsing.
I still wasn’t all that eager to buddy up with Nebuchadnezzar. He didn’t seem like a bad guy, but then again, he’d been in his own version of heaven for several millennia on Earth. It must have felt like eternity in the heavenly Babylon.
Suffice it to say, history hadn’t treated the Babylonian king well. Some of that probably had to do with the fact that Babylon wasn’t spoken of in glowing terms in the Bible, and most of Western history was filtered through ages of dominance by the church. He might not have been a saint, or even a noble and wise king, but there was a lot more to him than the little we knew about him from archaeology, the Bible, and other historical records. History tended to judge people based on a few actions, the highlights that managed to survive the passing of time. That didn’t mean history’s judgments were accurate or just.
